Once the Great Beast (Blood In The Sand veterans will know what I'm taking about...) hath been vanquished and everything that remained of it had been cleared and order restored, the battle could start.

Round 1

Inquisitor Alonso - Silent-Sigfig

"Fools! I'll show you how it's done!" Alonso bellows as his pilots fail their rolls.

With a succesful heroic feat, he brings his Dragonhead in front of the Jaguar.

Assyrians - Natalya

The Assyrians are quick to move. Accuracy is increased, and the captain personally aims the torpedoes at...

... you guessed it, the Jaguar. Or Sharane, more likely. It evokes response fire from Alonso however.

The missiles are on the same course as the torpedoes...

Boom. The first massive explosion of the game is already a fact.

Most Assyrian fighters are launched. The space station tries to cloak part of them but the engineer fails his roll.

And so does the Captain fail his heroic feat to force a torpedo launcher to appear on the space station.

The mercuries attempt to set this straight by firing their torpedoes, but save for one they all misfire. Urgh. The Space Station begins to turn its armed side towards the approaching Dragonheads.

Pretending nothing happened, they fall in line with the Venus. No luck so far.

Santa Espada - Gorono

"Let's infidel those infidels up the infidel!" It has no notable effect.

Speed and shields are increased as the Santa Espada surges forward. The autolaser takes a shot at the approaching torpedo, but misses narrowly.

Disruptor - Predator

The Disruptor plots a course behind the Mastercutor, no doubt to get into a more favourable position.

The Darkstar II - Cytheran

The Peach Lieutenant that was left in command of the ship snickers to herself as she engineers and sends a virus over to the Assyrians.

"Captain LOOK! They're sending us free pr0n!"

"Hmm. Not bad actually. Wait a minute... there's a virus attached" ... *diabolical laughter* "Do they think we're still running our computers on Faildows 7?" (failed feat, the Assyrians' morale is boosted by the pr0n and they get +1 skill next round)

The Darkstar II blitzes forward. Most of her weapons are still out of range, but two Mk. 2 rockets are fired at the Venus.

Dominator - me

The Dominator flies forward, a pilot failing to increase her speed. The commanding Himmelsjäger however maximizes shields for a round with her heroic feat.

The Mobhunters are launched, but they stay back for now.

Brittanian Ironclad - Silverdream

The Captain experiences a sudden name, and gender change. Warhead will probably not like this, but her Scottish charms fail to distract any of the Prussians.

She shrugs it off and commands her ship forward. Shields are increased.

"Fire."

The Ion Cannon lands a direct hit on the Ironclad's bridge! This knocks out the ship's shields for the round.

The Dominator tries to follow up by firing her turrets at the bridge, but the Ironclad uses her remaining move to swerve to the side at the last moment and present the Dominator with the armoured side. The shots blast into the Ironclad's side rather than the bridge, but the Brittanian gunboat nevertheless takes damage (-1 SP).

The Ironclad answers by firing the double mk. 1 launcher. The missiles fly for the Disruptor rather than the Dominator however.

... but this is what the Mobhunters had been waiting for. A lucky shot from the fighter takes the missiles out.

Eagle - Ex-Bajir

The Eagle spots the opportunity and flies forward at full speed. Photon cannons and turrets both rip into the Ironclad, bringing her down to her final SP.

Brittanian Mothership 'Francis Drake' - Spindle

"Alright chaps, you notice it as well, mayhaps? That, boys, is the smell of victory in the air! Let's blast these Krauts to smithereens and we'll be home in time for tea!"

"Huzzah!"

The charismatic Sir Rolys manages to increase the skill of the Darkstar and Ironclad's crews with +2 on their next rolls.

A critical success also increases the Mothership's shields by 2, as it creeps forward slowly, not yet in range of the Space Station.

Mastercutor - theblackdog

The Mastercutor's Himmelsjäger increases shields as the cruiser floats forward into battle. The anti-matter laser is not yet in range, but the rockets can be fired. Even with +1 to hit the pilot manages to screw it up and the Mk. 2 missiles misfire.

No problem, they're homing missiles, they'll readjust.

That is, unless the autolasers take them out first! Two sixes from the Dragonheads' AI disable both.

Duchess Angelica's Jaguar - Thesson

The Jaguar squeezes herself in between the escort ships. The autolasers try to take out the torpedo headed for them, but both miss.

Then they fire all the rockets at the Assyrians.

Two collide with the torpedo and explode in a chain reacton, those fired by the single launchers continue their way.

They're heading for one of the frigates.

On board the Jaguar...

Zupponn is munching on chainsaws, Chinook Carmine is praying to bring honour to his family , Silverdream bravely sits in the Comfy Chair in an attempt to prove his badassery. His precarious position is made even less bearable because Thesson is slapping him and screaming CONFESS CONFESS. Private scratch drinks coffee and eats doughnuts as he watches events unfold.

Arm-Wrestling Contest?!?!? You fool! *Smacks him upside the head with the side of his chainsaw* We have no time for shenanigans in this very important situation! Now go back to ticking Silva like you were doing.

Obviously the Assyrian Star Empire uses the products of the Apple Corporation to protect against viruses. How else could they be so badass and advanced?

Except Apple gets viruses too.

You are correct in a technical sense- 1 in 5 macs "have viruses" on them. They are all Windows viruses that are completely harmless for a mac and do nothing though. Therefore Assyrian macbooks can view virus-infested pr0n because the viruses, while there, will do nothing and cannot harm them. Real mac viruses have to dupe you into choking over your password but that's not an issue if you have two neurons to rub together. Also there is no true mac "virus" that can actually download itself without your knowing ie drive-by download etc.

Which is not because Macs have superior security, but because not a single person in the world gives enough of a crap about Macs to write a virus for them in the first place. If the Assyrians really did base their civilization on Mac technology, then there would be all kinds of craps given and the viruses would pour forth.

Natalya wrote:What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of how banned you are.

stubby wrote:Which is not because Macs have superior security, but because not a single person in the world gives enough of a crap about Macs to write a virus for them in the first place. If the Assyrians really did base their civilization on Mac technology, then there would be all kinds of craps given and the viruses would pour forth.

If you can give me one specific example of a Mac OS virus that can run without having to dupe the user into giving his password, on a macbook that has an unvoided warranty (aka no crazy hacks or mods), then I will let you win this argument.

Colette wrote:If you can give me one specific example of a Mac OS virus that can run without having to dupe the user into giving his password, on a macbook that has an unvoided warranty (aka no crazy hacks or mods), then I will let you win this argument.

So you admit you can't think of a single time when anyone smart enough to write a Mac virus cared enough about Macs to do so? I think you just won my argument for me.

Colette wrote:If you can give me one specific example of a Mac OS virus that can run without having to dupe the user into giving his password, on a macbook that has an unvoided warranty (aka no crazy hacks or mods), then I will let you win this argument.

So you admit you can't think of a single time when anyone smart enough to write a Mac virus cared enough about Macs to do so? I think you just won my argument for me.